 So, welcome everybody to the special TechSoup hosted online discussion, how to use the summer to prepare your organization for grant seeking. I'm going to read the Simons that we've been our producer here at TechSoup, and I'll be your host today. But really, I'm not going to be the speaker. I'm so delighted to have our speaker here with us today, Dahlia. I'm going to say it wrong, because it's right up to my tongue, but I'm going to mess it up. So, Dahlia, say your last name for me again. I was going to say that, but I was going to say Versace. So, we got it now. Dahlia Massage, everybody got it. Dahlia is an amazing, I love her energy, but she is an amazing woman that empowers nonprofits of all sizes to craft strategy and tactics for successful grant writing and management. She served over 25 years as a writer, an editor, a trainer, and a writing coach. And she's helped raise millions of dollars in grants on a wide range of social and economic, excuse me, environmental issues. She's an award-winning author. Her book is called Writing to Make a Difference, 25 powerful techniques to boost your community impact. She's also the instructor for TechSoup grant writing and management course track, and I'll tell you a little more about that in a moment. Currently, everyone here is on mute. I would love if you have a question, type it in the Q&A, and Dahlia will ask you at the end. Otherwise, feel free to engage in a chat room. A lot of you have some of the answers to these questions because you've been through some grant writing courses or some grant writing problem solving. So feel free to engage with each other in a chat room. This is being recorded. It will be available within 24 hours for everyone who has registered. Also, as soon as we finish the webinar, there's going to be a short survey. I want to say short, I mean like four questions. So please take the time to answer the four questions so we can better serve you. Dahlia, I'm so happy you're here with us today. So I'm going to turn it over to you. The stage is all yours. Okay, great. Thank you so much, Aretha. You're welcome. And let's see. Yeah, here we are. Okay. How do you use the summer to prepare your organization for grant seeking? Let's go to the next slide. Okay. So I know your organization is probably eager to attract some grant money to help support your good work. And that's what grants are there for. But are you really ready to take on all that's involved in grant seeking? After all, if you're not really ready to enter the grant world, you will just waste a lot of time, energy, and maybe even money. I've seen many nonprofit organizations make the mistake of not preparing properly and suffering the consequences. So you need to know what you're getting into, what to expect along the way, and what information people and other resources you're going to need to be successful. I want to make sure that you're ready and able to take this on. And today's webinar will introduce you to the grant world. Let's go to the next slide. Oh, no, don't, don't go yet. Sorry, Arita. I forgot. I want to tell you a little bit about what we're going to be doing today with the agenda. So we'll first cover four things to consider about the grant world before taking the plunge. Then we'll move on to eight information essentials, what I call the information essentials. Those are real things that you will need to have when you're going into the grant seeking mode. Then we'll look at your grant team and their skills and resources. And when I say grant team, I'm talking about a team of folks who come together to work on grants. We'll talk about that. And then finally, when you're ready, when you have all that kind of set up, then I'm going to preview what I call the grant roadmap. And I'll say a lot more about that in a little bit. So let's go to the next slide now, Arita. Yeah. Okay. So this is just a little bit about me. Arita shared some of this already. My book again is called writing to make a difference, 25 powerful techniques to boost your community impact picture here. I've also edited and work contributed to nine books, nine other books. And I was actually in your shoes too. A while ago, I served as the founding director of Bay Area International Development Organizations or Baydo. And let's go to the next slide. Okay. The other thing that Arita mentioned about me is that I teamed up with TechSoup to create the popular on demand course track called grant writing and management shown here. Today's webinar is based on that course track and it features a preview of some of the actual screenshots from the course. That grant writing and management course track is comprised of five courses as you see here. And they work together to form a starter kit for grant success. Let's go to the next slide. Okay. So the course track contains all the tools you'll need to start or expand your grant seeking work. And the first tool as you see here involves knowing what to expect from the grant world. Max, please. Okay. So let's talk about four things to consider before you take the plunge into the grant seeking world. You should know that not all grants are good for you. You might be surprised before diving in. I suggest that you first get clear about the difference between a grant that can be helpful to your organization and one that actually doesn't do you any favors. Pursuing a grant strategy is a major endeavor. And you want to go in with your eyes wide open. Now is a great time this summer to really think about how these four things relate to the work that you hope to find. So let's go to the next slide. Okay. So let's look at grant limitation number one. That is that grants generally take up to six to 12 months to be awarded after you apply. And that's not counting the time it takes to repair your application. In fact, good preparation or otherwise known as grant writing is quite time consuming itself. So recently we have seen a little bit of a difference here because of COVID-19. Some grant makers have started giving COVID-19 grants and might even have received one. They usually they're considered emergency or rapid response grants. And those usually have shorter turnaround times as you can imagine, but that is a rarity. So I would not count on that kind of timeline to be true for you as you go into grant seeking. Now, of course, six to 12 months is probably going to be too long to wait if you've got an urgent project. Right. Sometimes board members or even executive directors are unfamiliar with grant seeking and they may think, hey, grants offer a quick and easy way to fund us once to go for it. But that's actually generally not the case. It's usually not quick and easy as they would hope for it to be, but it's not quite there. Okay. Let's go to the next slide. Okay. Grant limitation number two is that grant makers often change their priorities and they can be unreliable. Some people call it the flavor of the month club. You don't want your organization to become dependent on only one or two grants because they could go out of fashion next year and then you're going to be in trouble. You can protect your organization's well-being by having many different sources of income in case any of them suddenly slow down or dry up. And those other sources of income might include things like major individual donors or events or fees for services you provide or social enterprises you run. So any grant strategy should be part of a much larger fundraising plan. Okay. Next slide please. So grant limitation number three is that grants are only temporary and they have no guarantee of continuing. So you, from your point of view, you want your organization to be sustainable, right? You want to have, so you're going to have to develop a strategy to ensure that you survive or thrive past the duration of any specific grant you attract. While grants can and should be part of the mix. Don't get me wrong. They can and should be part of the mix. You can't expect them to be anything other than a short-term fix for a year or two. So if they end up being long-term and sometimes they do, that's an awesome thing and you'll be pleasantly surprised, but don't plan on that. So living, I like to think of living grant to grant. It's kind of like living paycheck to paycheck if you don't have a guaranteed job. It's not a very good idea if you can help it, right? Okay. And number, let's go to the next slide. Yeah. This is limitation number four. And limitation number four is grants are actually not pre-money. Sorry if I just burst someone's bubble here, but they're not. There's a lot of work involved in seeking and managing different types of grants. Your organization has to decide if it's worth dedicating the time, effort and other resources you need in exchange for the possible cash from a grant. In addition, some grants come with strings attached and you have to consider the agreement you're making to accept that money from any particular funder. An example might be a funder who demands too much work in exchange for a small grant that will only partially cover your expenses. Next, please. Okay. So now that you know kind of what you're dealing with when it comes to grants, let's talk about what it takes to show funders that your organization is well positioned to seek and manage grants. And I call this the eight information essentials that you'll need at your fingertips. The idea here is to prepare to show that you are worthy of a grantmaker's investment. Think about it. If you were considering making an investment of any kind, you probably would be looking for a good return on your investment, right? I would. You need to show that your organization is credible and well run and able to use a grant effectively. I think you'll find as we go through the rest of today's webinar that as a grant writer or grant seeker, you will need to know a lot about your organization. Next slide. Okay. The first thing you'll need of the eight information essentials, the first thing is official nonprofit tax status. And hopefully most or all of you on the webinar today already have this. But if you don't, I'll just explain it a little bit. You're going to need either your own nonprofit status or if you're not yet a separate nonprofit, you're going to need a fiscal sponsor that agrees to administratively sponsor your organization in exchange for a fee. At a minimum, you'll need to have certifications on federal and state level. And some areas require a county or city business license or other documentation. So check your local area. And FYI, some grantmakers only are interested in organizations that have been officially in existence for at least a few years. So if your organization is younger than that, you may need to wait to approach those specific funders. So make sure you read the information before you think about approaching those funders. But there are many others out there. So don't worry about it if that's true for you. Okay. Let's move on to the next slide. Can you go up one for me? Yeah, I would too. Okay. The second thing you'll need is you'll want to make sure your organization has a clear, unique mission. And those are two keywords that are clear and unique. Think about how your organization makes a special or unique role in your field. If your mission statement could describe any other organization that is similar to yours, you probably want to think again. Because you really need a mission that stands out and is different from other organizations. You will need to clarify what you set out to do in your community in terms so clear that anyone can understand what you're saying. So you're not going to use any kind of jargon or anything that's kind of cryptic. So periodically you revisit your mission to make sure it continues to be relevant and inspiring even as times and circumstances change. And I'm sure you know what I mean when I talk about times and circumstances change. We've just gone through a big one of those. Next slide, please. Okay. Number three, you're going to need an active, financially supportive board of directors. Now, of course, you're thinking, oh yeah, we already have a board of directors. Most likely you do, but how active are they? Do they meet regularly? And do they all contribute financially in a meaningful way? Also, are they connected to the community that you serve? All of these are really important questions that funders are going to want to know. So it's best to have a good variety of folks on your board who are familiar with various parts of your organization. If your board also includes some current or former clients and it's representative of the ethnic and socio-economic communities you serve, you're already off to a great start. Number three, all right, let's move on to number four. Next slide. Okay. Number four is you're going to need the appropriate financial information, right? You will need to be able to produce several financial documents for funders, and that includes budgets, expense and revenue reports, IRS filing, balance sheets, and the list goes on. So you also need to show that you're, you also need to show that you're on solid financial ground. Even if you're just starting out, oh, we're still on number four. Can you go back to number four? One more slide up. Trying to get to number four. Yeah, there you go. Okay. Let's see, where was I? Okay, so I was talking about how it's important to make sure that you can show that you're on solid financial ground, even if you're just starting out as an organization. So if you're in debt of any sort, you will most likely need to get out of that debt before you can seek new grants. And if you're behind on IRS filings or if you haven't passed a recent financial audit, those issues need to be cleared up first. On a related note, funders want to know that you have multiple sources of support. So you need to be able to show a solid history of financially sustaining yourself. And that's true even if you're new. So you need to be able to show some sort of community support to keep your head above water. That may even look like community volunteers or in-kind support, some kind of support. It would be nice to have some financial support too, to be able to show to funders. Okay, now we're ready for the next slide. Yeah. After all, no one wants to pour money into a sinking ship. Right? So you want to get your ship upright and ready to roll. Okay, let's go to the next slide. All right, number five. So number five is you're going to need to be prepared to propose at least one priority program with a budget for that program. Now you may already know that the vast majority of grants are given for specific programs or projects for only one year at a time. And pursuing that kind of funding requires that you are clear about your own priorities over the next year or more, but at least one year. With that in mind, you'll need to divide your work into specific units. Usually we call them programs or projects, right? With realistic expectations for a one-year period. That's really important, the one-year period. These bite-sized chunks need to be centered on your organization's strengths or core competencies. So you're not going to be doing some kind of tangential work. You're going to be really focusing on your strengths and core competencies as an organization. If your organization is very new, you may only have one program to start with, and that's okay, no problem. But even in that case, I encourage you to break it down into smaller pieces. Remember that each program or project needs a realistic budget. That is the money you will need to run it and where you expect to find those funds. Okay, let's take a breath here because that was a lot of program planning that has to happen before you're ready to pursue grants. And this summer is a great time to do that planning. Okay, let's move on to number six. There you go. The sixth information essential is your method of quantitative or qualitative evaluation. Funders want to know basically what's working and what's not with your organization. They want to know the quantitative results of your work, such as how many people you served or how many animals you saved, et cetera, and the quality of the impact you made. That is how big of a difference did you make with your work. Funders often call these short and long-term measurable outcomes. Okay, let's move on to the next line, number seven, right? Then there's the seventh essential item you'll need, and that is a track record of success. Now, if you're new, you probably don't have a track record yet, right? But I'm hoping that you'll at least have the right leadership to make success happen in the future. You're going to need to be clear on how your organization and or your project has already made a positive difference in your community. That is, what results have you already seen? And there are lots of ways to tell the story of your organization's past that can lead to a bright future. So that's what you want to focus on for number seven. And finally, the next slide shows us the eighth essential, which is a strategic plan of some kind. Now, even if you can't carry out a full-blown strategic planning process, your board and staff can at least envision a general outline of where you're headed over the next one to three years. Now, it doesn't need to be fancy. You just need to demonstrate that your work is coherent and realistic in accomplishing your mission, given the context that you're working in. In the grant writing and management course track, we go much more in-depth on these eight information essentials. And in the course, I help you assess your organization and address any barriers you may face as you prepare for the grant-seeking journey ahead. If you feel like your organization is not quite ready with all of these eight information essentials, no need to worry. That's why you're preparing now, right? Okay, so let's go on to the next slide. Okay, clearly, as I just kind of explained, there's a lot to think about and plan for before starting your grant-seeking journey. And by now, you've probably realized that producing and managing all of the eight information essentials takes a lot of time and talent. Let's discuss the major skill sets you will need to have on your grant writing and management team. And yes, I said team, because grant writing and management is a team effort or a team sport. It will require you as the grant professional to have regular access to the appropriate people on your team. So you'll need folks to help at different points in the process. And now we're going to take a look at what they'll be doing, all the people on your team. Okay, so to get started, you'll need a program specialist to outline the vision for the prioritized plan or project that you're looking to be funded. That person will be very involved in creating and reviewing proposal drafts for content accuracy. Okay, next slide. You'll also need a community needs assessor to help establish why the program or project is so crucial in the first place. That critical piece should embrace as much community involved as possible. After all, who would be better to know the issues than community members themselves? Next slide. As the program is being developed, don't forget to include an evaluator. That is someone to determine a feasible way to track and measure the program's effectiveness. Once the program is funded, you'll need to have someone monitor the implementation and evaluation of it. And when it's time to report your progress to the funder, you're going to need information about the project status and outcomes. Next slide. Don't forget to find someone to collect stories of clients who benefit from the project. Many funders these days will want to know that information. And next, we're talking about the financials. And of course, financials are super important to funders, right? So those numbers need to be very accurate and up to date. Next slide. Throughout the process, you're likely to need folks to provide detailed administrative information or assistance. And that often includes human resources, accounting, legal, technical, clerical, et cetera. And finally, while all that is being done, you'll need someone to research appropriate funding opportunity and someone to be a schmoozer or a relationship cultivator to initiate and maintain relationships with those funders. There's one more piece here that I want to share. And that is a role that needs to be filled by the executive director or the CEO. And often this piece is kind of overlooked, so I want to emphasize it. That role is the role of strategic supporter of your grant seeking work. This person will provide the resources and inspiration to facilitate the grant success. So without their strong support and vision, the grant team is going to lack direction, priorities and motivation. So this person, the ED or CEO, is very important as part of the grant team. Take a breath here. That sounds like a lot of people. And it might be depending on your organization's size. You know, if it's small, that's one thing. But if it's large and you have lots of people to play these different roles, that's a great thing too. Now, while most team roles are going to be played by staff members, you may also call upon outside people, like experts or collaborators or keyboard members or maybe even volunteers to play some of these roles. Also, remember that a single person may take on more than one role, and that's probably been your experience. On the other hand, more than one person can share any given role. Next slide. Okay, so once you prepare your organization for grant seeking by considering the four grant limitations, gathering the eight information essentials and assembling your grant team. Next slide. You are ready to go on your journey. You got the green light. Okay, next slide. Well, there are many parts of the grant seeking process that are up to funders. Let's focus today on the steps that we grant seekers can control. Here you see the grant roadmap that we use to guide us through the grant writing and management course track. It shows the typical grant seeking process. And you'll see on the very beginning here, we start with the first three steps, which can be done in any order or even simultaneously. Here we focus on learning about funders and how to craft a grant proposal that speaks to them. Next slide. We go through the entire process of planning and drafting the various components of a grant proposal. Next. And that includes the narrative or the text portion, the budget, and then all of the additional administrative pieces that complete the grant proposal package. In the course track, you will also begin to research your most likely funders and learn to customize your grant proposal to their specific interests. Next slide. Now, once you have a solid draft, we will go through an extensive mock review to make sure that your draft is complete. Next slide. And the grant writing management course track includes over 30 downloads. And I'm going to show you a few examples of what that looks like. So we have a lot of hands-on exercises and worksheets. And yes, then this, and continuing with the worksheets, lots of hands-on type of work that I give you. And then we have a lot of samples. And for example, here's a sample of request for a proposal or RFP. And let's look at the next slide. It's another sample. This is a sample cover letter for a proposal package. Let's look at the next slide. And here's the sample budget for the program that we use. We use a sample program throughout the grant writing and management course track. It's called the Elder Eats program. And here's the sample budget for it. Okay, let's go on to the next slide. Okay, here's another sample that we use, the generic proposal narrative template. We fill that out. And then we have lots of other activities, kind of interactive activities as part of the online course. Here's one example. Let's look at the next one. Yeah, here's another one. We have some pop quizzes in there to make sure that you're learning as we go. Okay, move on. Let's go on to the next slide. And then we also have a lot of important resources that aren't technically part of the course, the course work that we're doing. Well, we have important resources that are good for you to have as you move through this process. For example, this glossary. And let's move to the next slide. We also have transcripts of all of the courses and all of the modules in the courses, which is great because you can go back and refer back to it. And then you can go back to the course. And then you can scroll along if you have some hearing impairments. You can also use the transcripts instead of relying on the sound for the course drive. Okay. Now, going back to the grant roadmap here. After you submit your grant proposal, which is step four, that's where you are on the grant roadmap. The funder's program officer or what we call the PO the program officer will then get to work while you are going to remain available to them to answer any of their questions. Right. When the funder's board votes on whether or not to fund your proposal, then we're at step eight of the grant roadmap. And next slide. And at that point, we're hoping for a well-deserved win. Right. Hopefully the board will vote us in on the grant roadmap. That would be awesome. So at that point, we're at step nine on the grant roadmap. And the next slide. Can you go back up one? Yeah. Okay. So once the celebration is over, the grant writing and management course track will guide you through the final three steps on the grant journey. And that is project implementation, reporting, opportunities that you'll find. And then the grant roadmap loops back to the beginning. And the good news is that each time you go through the grant roadmap, you will improve. And I'm going to just give you one second to look at this cartoon. Of course, sometimes grant proposals just don't get funded. Right. They don't succeed. And that's okay. We will discuss what they have happened and how you can learn from the rejection. If that happens to you. Next slide. Okay. So before I take a few questions, I want to leave you with a few goodies. And the first is, as I mentioned, TechSoup and I worked together on this grant writing and management course track. And we're offering a 20% discount on the course track to anyone watching this webinar, either live or recorded. So if you're watching this, you know, in a few days or weeks or months, we are actually not months because the discount expires on June 30th, 2021. So make sure you get in on the deal before it expires in a couple weeks. Okay. Next slide. And a few other resources that I wanted to share with you. You'll see on the next slide that we have several articles on the TechSoup blog. And they explore some of the topics that I covered in the course track. Also, just out today, there's a new blog post. It's not even on the slide yet because it's just coming out today. It's called How to Build a Proven, Simple and Easy, Fundra-Friendly Budget. So that will be up on the TechSoup blog probably right after this webinar. I also host a free series twice a month on Facebook Live and I call it Ask Dahlia Live where I answer your questions about grant writing and management. And the series runs every second and fourth Wednesday of the month at 12 noon Pacific time. So that's 3 o'clock, 3 p.m. Easter time. Recordings are all available online. And you can also follow me on the next slide. My business is called Writing for Community Success and we are all over the web on several social media platforms. You can look for us at Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn. And there you will hear all about the Ask Dahlia Live series on Facebook Live and the many other resources that I offer. And next slide. Finally, you are welcome to visit my website and subscribe to my free monthly newsletter. You can also contact me directly via that website. So here it is, writingtomakeadifference.com. And now I'm happy to open it up to questions and let's see what you got for me. Okay, great job Dahlia. Thank you so much. So I'm going to go over to the chat. My first question is, I know a lot of people that put some comments in there and some people came a little late. There was one comment that a young lady said that she thought maybe this was for beginners. This webinar, although I believe I go to all types of webinars you can learn from all of them. So what's your feedback on that, Dahlia? Yes. to the types of things that you need to do to prepare for grant seeking, and that's usually true for a lot of beginners, but even even folks who've been around the block for a while they it's a good idea to kind of go back and just cover the basics, right? Make sure you've got everything covered. In addition, the grant writing and management course track is a starter so it's largely for beginners, but again if you've been doing grant writing for a while it probably will provide some insights for you that you may not have heard of or may not have thought of before. Very good, and let's just put the course link back in the chat room for those you are interested in taking the course. Also there is a 20% discount and there's a comment from Sam when meeting for the first time with a potential grantor, what are some of the questions you should ask? Very good question and that is kind of a whole module in the course so I couldn't like you know share all that information out it's quite extensive, but I can tell you that when you're first meeting you want to go into the meeting having done your homework so you're going to do a lot of research on that funder before you meet with them so you're not going to ask basic questions that you could have found out on a website that's a very common mistake that people that grant seekers make when they speak with a funder they ask them things that they should already know so kind of be aware for that. Given that once you kind of know some background I would suggest thinking about or thinking about ways that you can ask kind of deeper questions like can you be a little bit more specific about this program area that you fund? I have a specific question about you know some aspect of it that would be a great thing to show the funder that you already know about them and you've done your homework. You also might want to ask them things like are you most interested in general operating support or are you interested in specific programs can you tell me you know a little bit more about that in detail so basically the questions that you ask the funder should be kind of higher level and not just basic. Okay I'm going to go to the Q&A section if you have a question it would be very helpful to type it in the Q&A section because now the questions are coming in chat rooms everything's moving pretty fast. Mindy want to know will you be sharing the slides to this presentation? Yes I believe they will the recording for this presentation will be available right Harifa? Yes the recording for the presentation will be available in a few hours and Michelle how do you find grants to apply for are there databases or other places where you should look to find grants worth applying to? Great question and yes that's actually all of grant writing and management 203 is focused specifically on that question again whole field it's not something I can really answer in just a minute or two but I can tell you that yes there are lots of databases website research additional resources that you can use to find out not only about the funders but to do research on them because it's really important to vet them and figure out which of this whole universe of funders which ones are going to be best for me. Okay great and the Mount Hood hospital asks how would HIPAA laws impact asking for grants? HIPAA is about health care privacy and that's a good question my guess is that you're probably from a health care organization so yes you're gonna have to protect the privacy of whoever appears in your grant proposal right so you're not going to use real names of people you are not going to divulge any information about them or maybe even about the specific community or group that you're that you're working with that would violate their privacy so if that's a concern I think it's important to kind of to look at the HIPAA laws in comparison to what exactly you're doing because you you don't want to have any problems in that area. Okay great Brandy says can you clarify by what is meant by quote-unquote active financially supported board our board members are volunteers very active and contribute with their time but not necessarily wallets. Okay okay good question. Being active and contributing your time is very important so that's a great first step I would suggest that you think about kind of two ways usually people consider financial contributions in two ways either the first one is directly from them right if they want if they are able to give some kind of financial contribution that is meaningful to them so it doesn't necessarily have to be like a dollar amount a specific dollar amount it can just be whatever is meaningful to them to give that counts the second way that that some people do this is if they're not able to financially contribute themselves then they are able to approach others who can contribute financially so they either give the money themselves or they get donations or contributions as part of their board service. Okay Karen asks you mentioned some links while you were doing the presentation you're referring to some documents she wants to know are they available on your website or can you give a site link to some of those documents? Okay the documents that I showed are all in the course track so those those were just a few of the samples of the over 30 downloaded documents that are included in the course track. Okay this I think this answers the question the next question they wanted you to go over some of the templates that you showed earlier again this is recorded so you'll see this on the replay and patrice says it seems that you need to apply for a grant far in advance when you might actually have to have an event scheduled how do you plan ahead for funding when you don't have a formal plans when you don't have formal plans? Okay planning is really important and you're right applying for a grant means that you're gonna have to wait for a while right to go through the grant seeking process that whole grant roadmap takes time so if you're thinking that you're going to have some work that you need to do in a short period of time you don't want to go with a grant most likely you want to look at other sources of income for that but it's not a good idea to go into the grant seeking world without a plan you need to have some kind of plan. April says if I'm working internationally do I need certifications? My guess is that you're based in the US but you work internationally I don't know exactly what you mean but yes you're going to need certifications of some sort at least you'll need to be considered a nonprofit within the US you may depending on the type of work that you're doing internationally you may also need some kind of certifications internationally I don't know enough of the details of your situation to really be able to answer specifically unfortunately. Okay Dalia I'm going to prepare this next question for you but would you type your link your Facebook somebody want your Facebook group link can you put it in the chat room while I kind of put these other questions up here um an anonymous attendee asked um this is kind of one of the same question do you have any narrative examples um they learn best by examples um yes just one moment here take your time take your time yes and I think she um she did show some examples that she would provide in the course yes yeah all those samples are are just those are kind of a portion of the types of um documents that I include in the course so there are lots of samples in there and they also long to know um can you list the top grant databases that you use um yes we actually that's one of the downloads is is kind of a list of that those kind of databases but I would recommend if you're just starting out especially you're going to want to look at the foundation center they have a great online database um it's called foundation directory online that is available for a fee but also you can use it for free if you go to one of their cooperating libraries around the country and there are several hundred of them so it's likely that in your city or in your larger area there's going to be a library that carries it that subscribes to it so if you go to the library you're able to use their database for free so I would recommend that one sorry and we also have here at TechSoup grant station so if you go to TechSoup you can get access to grant station for a fraction of the cost than any other grant database here so grant station is one of our partners that allow our nonprofits to have access to you know research their sample grant proposals and so much more it's called grant station okay so the seat of life where do you find uh local national international grants um I mean is there somewhere to sign up so I gave you one example um grant station and Dahlia can give you others yeah um those those are two great resources grant station and foundation center um there are there are several others there's not really a place that you sign up to get all of the grant opportunities there are several places that you would want to want to check in yes and Anna um Anne excuse me she's I'll put a link here she said why hasn't this been updated since 2017 she's talking about the council of nonprofits.org it's a resource grant list and she put the council foundation she puts their tool research for grant research in the chat area thank you so much um Mido if I hope I'm saying that right how do you find the right grant on the NIH.org everything is still research oriented for fitness and child obesity grants same for grants.org so basically how to navigate those two very technical websites NIH and grants.gov which I know I'm waiting for you to answer great those are very yeah it's kind of kind of a maze right um I would suggest I can't give you that information right now um I would suggest can't looking on their website and seeing if they have like a tutorial or some kind of information that's specific to their database there are so many databases out there um that it's likely that either they will have a tutorial or just go online and ask that question there's likely to be someone who's been in your specific shoes and they may be able to give you some direction. Yeah it's like when you're going to those when you put in your keyword and you find the grant that you're matched for it's basically a lot of reading a lot of reading but there's also a contact there's always a point of contact either an email or phone number most likely email now or the website where you can reach out to them to ask them questions and that can kind of help you narrow your search through the Grants.gov and NIH I know those are monsters because they gave you millions of dollars so they're not going to make it easy for you right and you may need to contact them more than once FYI exactly so um somebody put are there any tips that can make your grant RFP stand out um I think you're talking about a response to an RFP because an RFP is a request for proposal so your response to the RFP is your proposal and yes there are many ways and we cover many of them in the grant writing and management course track. Okay the Mount Hood Hospice asked again they they want to thank you for your response and they said if I'm able to share specific information because of HIPAA laws would the funder use that as a strike against me um so they would give me money or they would give money to a different applicant because they could share specific information? Oh I don't think so I think if that's your situation then you can just be very clear in your proposal you know come out and say you're unable to share specific information due to HIPAA laws right so you would just go out there and and be very clear about what you're doing and your limitations that you're working under. I think funders will should be understanding that if they fund in your area they're going to be familiar with HIPAA laws. Exactly and and I can't see them asking for specific information on patients or clients because I've seen grants or been on grant review boards where it was victims of sexual trauma and they would never put the information they will always say the client or the victim so they refer it to them as that. Kimberly asked is the course self-guided would there be any live sessions or hands on with you Dalia? Good question it is self-guided it's all on demand so there are no live sessions with me it's it's a series of videos of me and interactive sessions so what I showed you like the pop quiz and the hands-on exercises all of those are you being involved with the course but not in a live way so the good part the good thing about that is you can do it at your own leisure right you can do it at 3 a.m if you wanted if you wanted to it doesn't matter what time whatever time works for you is the time that you do it. Okay good I'm still in the Q&A section if you have a question please type in the Q&A section I love how you all are engaging in the chat room I see Ann answering a lot of questions and sharing her you know experiences and knowledge and Jen thank you so much so I'm going back to Elizabeth's question she said please share your thoughts on grants for operating costs okay just so folks know general operating costs tend to be for the entire organization right they're not limited or restricted to a specific program or project those grants are the most highly coveted right because they're kind of anything goes here's the money use it in the best way that you can and you're not going to we're not going to nitpick you so those are highly coveted but at the same time they're also the rarest there's the hardest to get because they're not they're not a lot of them out there the good news is that in the past I would say five plus years more more and more grant makers are getting hip to the fact that oh yeah we probably should be offering more grants more general operating support grant so there is some growth in that area and that's really good especially now that funders are in the past year or so funders are getting more and more interested in racial equity and those tend to be the grants can be more general operating support or eat or capacity building which is another kind of general operating support grant that we talked about awesome um ebon said do you provide a decision matrix for evaluating the fitness of a grant opportunity that is a good question um I showed a slide called the moth review I don't know if you remember it you may want to go back to the slide um yes I call it the moth review and it's an eight page matrix of sorts of things that that you would want to go back through your proposal and make sure that everything is being covered um from a from a funder's perspective so you're going to kind of put on the hat of a funder and go through a moth review using that that document that I have in the course okay last question in q&a and then I'll go to the chat room we'll be wrapping up Steph they want to know do you have any advice on foundation slash grant research management software programs um she says you know it's a better for her to go to library do her research but then she's managing doing everything by hand yes good question um I'm not an expert in software so that probably would be a good tech suit question I think tech suit has some grant management software in its catalog maybe you know more about that orita yes we do there's several um there's sales force um there's another one that I won't come to my mind but if you go to the software you'll see it'll say crm or customer relations management okay great question great question thank you so much um marjorie says can you tell us more about your facebook live sure um it's called ask dolly alive and it's twice a month uh second or fourth wednesdays at noon on uh pacific time we we just started it um about a month and a half ago so it's new so far we have three episodes up there and it's basically me answering all kinds of questions from folks about grant writing and management from different perspectives it could be brand new folks it could be people who've been in their in their grants you can gain for a while um we cover all kinds of topics and it runs about 10 minutes so it's not it's not uh like a a big imposition on your time it's at noon pacific time so for those west coast folks like me we can kind of listen during lunchtime so that's that's what it is and I encourage you to check it out um my company again is called writing for community success so that's the the facebook page where you can find it great dalia i want to thank you for your time i want to thank everybody who came you could have been doing anything today but you chose to come here to get some tools to help your nonprofit and to help the community mostly um would you do me a favor before you leave type in the chat room one of the takeaways that you learned from today lots of people are saying thank you i saw a lot to thank you's in the chat room where they say this is my first time attending a grant webinar this is so helpful so thank you john saying thank you jasmine saying thank you so much we appreciate that we appreciate the feedback again as soon as you close this then the um survey will pop up on your screen everybody's saying thank you great yeah and that that was a great idea ritha to ask folks to type in kind of the the one thing that you're taking away from today that that that would be great for me to know what's what's important to yeah um someone says so much writing for grants and I had no clue regarding that thank you for sharing you're welcome derek said he loved the steps approach for getting grant ready awesome everybody's saying this is informative thank you small details which are very important that you mentioned very good um april said understanding the process more jasmine says i'm excited to try out these example documents awesome debbie says thank you the first time again brand new dawn profit so it was overwhelming but it was it's a great start being here today good job thank you everybody being prepared lots of great comments so thank you everyone biggest takeaway have a team yes yes for a long long for for the long haul that's right yes awesome awesome again thank you everybody um make sure you sign up for our other um webinars and edy chat is coming up edy chat which is executive directors chat with tech soup come on join us and we'll see you on thursday i always say to everybody who's in a non-profit world you're busy taking care of everybody else make sure you take time to take care of yourself we'll see you next time everybody all right thanks for coming everybody bye for now